Golden Sun Dark Dawn (DS)

[Taylor]

RPG is a vague term and basically means "levelling up." If a new FPS game is said to have RPG-elements nobody expects a terrorist Dungeon Master placing down evil. I don’t think these two genres are directly comparable and consciously skipped your list of perceived problems.

Although incidentally the JRPG Darkengard had Arioch. An elven mother whose family was murdered, and to get stronger she formed a pact with a demon that made her infertile, and she now enjoys killing and eating children. But, as that level of background detail and genre might suggest, this is not a player choice. You can’t feed her salad instead.

[Sentura]

a role playing game by and large should contain role playing. it doesn't require level ups or experience, it basically and only requires role playing. of course this raises the question whether not all games are role playing games

nevertheless, what we associate with rpgs (at least western ones) is an open or semi open world, littered with choices for the player to take. all of these choices have consequences, and these consequences shape the linearity of the game. in jrpgs, it seems the game experience is more sequential rather than open, which would not really make them rpgs in the sense of association, but rather a completely different genre of games - which again, would make a comparison useless.